You can't spell 'abusive sports parents' without U.S.

A survey of horrid sports parent behavior confirms a point of American pride. Yet it also portends a threat to it from a country already taking our tech support jobs and, apparently with them, our dominance at yelling “fuck you” at a referee, especially after special dialect training.

The Reuters poll asked 23,351 adults in 22 countries if a) they had even been to a kids’ sporting events and b) if they had even seen parents become verbally or physically abusive toward coaches or officials. (Left unasked was how many of those adults were pedos cruising the sidelines.) The poll found 37% of adults attended children’s sporting events, and the most abusive nation was:

U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A.!

Sixty percent of the adults who attended kids’ sporting events in the United States agreed with the statement that they had seen physical and verbal abuse at those games. And I know you share my reaction: only 60 percent?

And who is profanely nipping at America’s heels? India!

Can you believe 59 percent of adults in India said they witnessed physical and verbal abuse at coaches and referees? First India takes our jobs, and now it takes our awful spectating habits? So when do you start serving your kids shitty hot dogs and Capri-Sun after games, India?

Italy (55 percent), Argentina (54 percent), Australia (53 percent) and Canada (5o percent) are also coming close to the United States, as well.

What this means, my fellow Americans, is that if we want to keep our dominance in something, for once, it’s time to get serious. I mean, fucking serious, or I’ll kick your fucking ass.

If we as a nation want to keep our title of Craziest Sports Parents, we have to step up our games. Get more obscene! Punch the coach! Slap the ump! Beat your children! What are you, a fucking pansy? You want fucking INDIA to be crazier than us? Things have gotten so bad in this country, we’re going to start OUTSOURCING throwing shit at the coach?

That’s bad enough, but if this keeps up, someday we’re going to be out-crazied by Canada. Canada! But Canadians are so polite! You’re going to let yourself be outcrazied by someone who yells, “Stick that call up your ass! Please?”

Over the years, America has lost a lot that has made her great. Don’t lose her ability to make her children shamed with embarrassment on the field of play.

3 Responses

This story caught my attention, and not just because India’s features at no. 2

Abusive sports parents are a nightmare and set a bad example for children. There have to be more effective ways of managing expectations.

On the India bit, I am very sceptical of the findings. Abusive parents implies India has an active sports culture and youth sport is very competitive – which sadly is not the case, with the lone exception of cricket.

In this case, I think the [small?] sample size is not representative of the population, a majority of which doesn’t play any sport.

True, Anita, the sample size might not reflect the whole of India. But it seems like the recipe for crazy sports parents is a certain level of economic comfort — not that poor parents are most abusive, but the middle-class and rich are. So India’s numbers could come just from cricket, or they could come (I would guess) from the small subset of parents active in youth sports. Below there’s a link to a piece I did about concern in South Korea about overbearing sports parents, and an expert there said that started right about the time the country reached a relatively comfortable economic status.